Club Champion pushing Titleist on me?

[therb]

Hi all, I know that this has been brought up before as a potential concern in regards to spifs or bigger kickbacks for CC club fitters selling certain brands. I wanted to bring up my recent experience with them getting fit for a driver as my gut is telling me that's what happened to me. I'm in Canada and unfortunately there's not a lot of experienced club fitters to work with that offer a wide range of Graphite Design & Ventus shafts. I got a recommendation to a guy working at CC, and he was knowledgeable especially on shafts, but I felt like he was pushing the Titleist GT2 driver on me.

 

I went in for a 1.5 hour driver fitting coming from a G400 MAX. I told him that I loved the Ping, it's the best driver I've ever had, but I wanted to reduce my cut spin a bit and find something with a bit more ball speed, with a shaft that feels stable but not boardy. I told him I went to a retailer and hit the G440 LST with a stock shaft and loved it. I'm a 1.5 HC, I must say I struggle hitting indoors a bit, the lighting is dark, I feel trapped, the wide rubber based tees mess with my visual a bit.

 

I start by hitting 5 drives with my current G400 MAX, all of them cuts with a few floaty ones. He immediately hands me the Titleist GT2 to test. I hit 5 shots with shaft #1. He then tells me we're going to keep you in the GT2 and try various shaft combos so we can get a baseline on shafts with no head variability and then go into different heads. I end up hitting 25 shots to start with 5 different shafts in the GT2. He then provides other heads from Callaway, TaylorMade, Cobra. I hit 3-5 shots with each. He then puts me back in the GT2 narrowing it down on the two shafts I hit best and I hit 10 more shots with the GT2. 

 

I had to ask him to try out the LST, he proceeded to tell me this wouldn't be a good fit for me as it's fade biased (I already hit a fade) and that it could actually cause more spin than reduce it on misses. He finally lets me give it a go, this was at the end of the fitting after I'd hit 55 drives already so I was tired - and I was still getting some of the higher range ball speed/smash factor with the LST but only hit 3 shots with it.

 

At the end of the fitting he tells me he'd like to get me in for another hour, so I schedule the follow up which is this weekend. He backtracks from his earlier comments and says next time I can try and hit the LST more while I'm fresh. Perhaps I wasn't direct enough during the fitting, however he knew I was a Ping fanboy already looking to reduce spin, and he was hesitant to even let me try out that head, dismissing it as a potential fit for me after bringing it up.

 

He sends me the launch monitor data and also a quote so I can get an idea of the cost (it's the GT2 in the quote). I look back at my numbers and I wasn't hitting the GT2 special or anything. I had just as good dispersion and even better ball speed with the Elyte, LST, Qi35 - even though I had only hit these clubs 5 times or less. Looking back on the data, 35/60 drives that I hit were with the GT2.

 

With the fitting cost, the quote ran me ~$1800 CAD (this was with a Velocore + shaft). I was expecting something similar, and I'm willing to splurge on a driver to my exact specs that lasts me 4-5 years, but at the same time, him seeming biased towards the GT2 really left a sour taste in my mouth, and it makes part of me just want to go back, try the LST some more and then buy elsewhere to save $500. 

 

Anyone else have any similar stories of this happening to people, or experienced something like this first hand?

[Pnwpingi210]

your experience isn’t uncommon.
 

Can you post the data you were sent comparing the drivers (obscuring any personal information you don’t want on the internet)

[driveandputtmachine]

Not always kick backs.  These guys have biases too.  Very good chance he has seen quite a few other people come from that head or one similar and have great results with the GT2.

 

Either way really pushing away from one brand or towards another always seems fishy, but in all honesty, every brand makes a great head nowadays, and they could fit you into any brand with the right weighting and shaft.

 

Last fitting I saw in person the fitter pulled the heads down and put shafts in all of them to see which one's my buddy liked the look of the best and worked off of that and he's in a Ping(CChampion fitting as well).

 

[therb]

1 hour ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

your experience isn’t uncommon.
 

Can you post the data you were sent comparing the drivers (obscuring any personal information you don’t want on the internet)

Here is some data sorted by ball speed (top to bottom). Mind you these numbers are terrible for my swing speed - doing a fitting during the winter and coming off a knee injury where I couldn't hit balls for 6 weeks wasn't the best idea. I was slightly on the heel most shots due to longer shafts and I have trouble choking up with stock/tapered grips. 

 

 

 

 

[therb]

1 hour ago, driveandputtmachine said:

Not always kick backs.  These guys have biases too.  Very good chance he has seen quite a few other people come from that head or one similar and have great results with the GT2.

 

Either way really pushing away from one brand or towards another always seems fishy, but in all honesty, every brand makes a great head nowadays, and they could fit you into any brand with the right weighting and shaft.

 

Last fitting I saw in person the fitter pulled the heads down and put shafts in all of them to see which one's my buddy liked the look of the best and worked off of that and he's in a Ping(CChampion fitting as well).

 

Interesting to hear. I wish my fitter went off what looks best to me versus just using the GT2 as the stock option from the start. Not that I didn't like it, but it's so much lighter feeling than Ping heads which threw me off. And at this point I'm so used to the outrageous turbulators and matte finish. 

[LeoLeo99]

Sort your data by the offline yards.  Looks like a Ping is the straightest from my eyeball.  

[therb]

3 minutes ago, LeoLeo99 said:

Sort your data by the offline yards.  Looks like a Ping is the straightest from my eyeball.  

Yeah it seems like Ping shows up more frequently in that more neutral range. Here's the data sorted by offline yards. 

 

[gsrjc]

Generally looking at spin numbers, you seem to do better with the GT2 so suspect he has seen other people with spin issues with Ping.

[Red4282]

It is a very odd way to fit. Most usually change heads to find one and fine tune with shaft, he seemed to do it backwards. Also, keep in mind YOU are in control, its your hard earned money. If you feel a certain way, speak up. Ask questions. Last, Id really avoid CC if possible. Just too many bad experiences. 

Edited March 20 by Red4282

[Pnwpingi210]

8 minutes ago, Red4282 said:

It is a very odd way to fit. Most usually change heads to find one and dine tune with shaft, he seemed to do it backwards. Also, keep in mind YOU are in control, its your hard earned money. If you feel a certain way, speak up. Ask questions. Last, Id really avoid CC if possible. Just too many bad experiences. 

Club champion fits the shaft first and then the head, or atleast they did around 2021 ish

[Llortamaisey]

Gotta move that old stock before the new Titleist irons are released this summer.  

[Red4282]

33 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

Club champion fits the shaft first and then the head, or atleast they did around 2021 ish

Interesting, cant say I agree with that approach, but may have to do with a big part of their model is upselling shafts. 

[Pnwpingi210]

12 minutes ago, Red4282 said:

Interesting, cant say I agree with that approach, but may have to do with a big part of their model is upselling shafts. 

What I’ve seen is agnostic fitters (txg, precision gold, tru spec) tend to do shaft first since it’s the timing device (hit center of face consistently) and then dial in flight and spin. with head.

 

oems like Titliest do head first since they are a head component company and not a shaft company.

[WristySwing]

3 hours ago, therb said:

Hi all, I know that this has been brought up before as a potential concern in regards to spifs or bigger kickbacks for CC club fitters selling certain brands. I wanted to bring up my recent experience with them getting fit for a driver as my gut is telling me that's what happened to me. I'm in Canada and unfortunately there's not a lot of experienced club fitters to work with that offer a wide range of Graphite Design & Ventus shafts. I got a recommendation to a guy working at CC, and he was knowledgeable especially on shafts, but I felt like he was pushing the Titleist GT2 driver on me.

 

I went in for a 1.5 hour driver fitting coming from a G400 MAX. I told him that I loved the Ping, it's the best driver I've ever had, but I wanted to reduce my cut spin a bit and find something with a bit more ball speed, with a shaft that feels stable but not boardy. I told him I went to a retailer and hit the G440 LST with a stock shaft and loved it. I'm a 1.5 HC, I must say I struggle hitting indoors a bit, the lighting is dark, I feel trapped, the wide rubber based tees mess with my visual a bit.

 

I start by hitting 5 drives with my current G400 MAX, all of them cuts with a few floaty ones. He immediately hands me the Titleist GT2 to test. I hit 5 shots with shaft #1. He then tells me we're going to keep you in the GT2 and try various shaft combos so we can get a baseline on shafts with no head variability and then go into different heads. I end up hitting 25 shots to start with 5 different shafts in the GT2. He then provides other heads from Callaway, TaylorMade, Cobra. I hit 3-5 shots with each. He then puts me back in the GT2 narrowing it down on the two shafts I hit best and I hit 10 more shots with the GT2. 

 

I had to ask him to try out the LST, he proceeded to tell me this wouldn't be a good fit for me as it's fade biased (I already hit a fade) and that it could actually cause more spin than reduce it on misses. He finally lets me give it a go, this was at the end of the fitting after I'd hit 55 drives already so I was tired - and I was still getting some of the higher range ball speed/smash factor with the LST but only hit 3 shots with it.

 

At the end of the fitting he tells me he'd like to get me in for another hour, so I schedule the follow up which is this weekend. He backtracks from his earlier comments and says next time I can try and hit the LST more while I'm fresh. Perhaps I wasn't direct enough during the fitting, however he knew I was a Ping fanboy already looking to reduce spin, and he was hesitant to even let me try out that head, dismissing it as a potential fit for me after bringing it up.

 

He sends me the launch monitor data and also a quote so I can get an idea of the cost (it's the GT2 in the quote). I look back at my numbers and I wasn't hitting the GT2 special or anything. I had just as good dispersion and even better ball speed with the Elyte, LST, Qi35 - even though I had only hit these clubs 5 times or less. Looking back on the data, 35/60 drives that I hit were with the GT2.

 

With the fitting cost, the quote ran me ~$1800 CAD (this was with a Velocore + shaft). I was expecting something similar, and I'm willing to splurge on a driver to my exact specs that lasts me 4-5 years, but at the same time, him seeming biased towards the GT2 really left a sour taste in my mouth, and it makes part of me just want to go back, try the LST some more and then buy elsewhere to save $500. 

 

Anyone else have any similar stories of this happening to people, or experienced something like this first hand?

 

Which CC Canada location was it? I'd say trust your gut and the numbers. If there is nothing special about them at the end of the new hour, walk away. You have a mental blueprint of what you hit in the LST that you can rely on for the upgraded model.

 

[WristySwing]

6 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

What I’ve seen is agnostic fitters (txg, precision gold, tru spec) tend to do shaft first since it’s the timing device (hit center of face consistently) and then dial in flight and spin. with head.

 

oems like Titliest do head first since they are a head component company and not a shaft company.

 

This is how I have done it as well. Find a head that is "okay", keep that variable the same and rotate through shafts until you find the one that really pops. Then you move on to the rest of the heads. In general, even if on paper there are 10 different heads that could fit you, I know by the end of your warmup that there are likely 2-3 on my short list that you are 80%+ walking out with just based on delivery.

[Pnwpingi210]

2 minutes ago, WristySwing said:

 

This is how I have done it as well. Find a head that is "okay", keep that variable the same and rotate through shafts until you find the one that really pops. Then you move on to the rest of the heads. In general, even if on paper there are 10 different heads that could fit you, I know by the end of your warmup that there are likely 2-3 on my short list that you are 80%+ walking out with just based on delivery.

I think shaft first and a pretty neutral head makes sense.  If you can’t time up the shaft, you’re going to hit all heads poorly.

 

[therb]

1 hour ago, Red4282 said:

It is a very odd way to fit. Most usually change heads to find one and fine tune with shaft, he seemed to do it backwards. Also, keep in mind YOU are in control, its your hard earned money. If you feel a certain way, speak up. Ask questions. Last, Id really avoid CC if possible. Just too many bad experiences. 

Yeah, 25 shots later he finally put me in another head. This one was on me for not speaking up. I was put in a blender hitting ball after ball, not really having time to think, look into the data closely, and put too much trust in my fitter. I knew the horror stories of CC coming into it but there's not a lot of good options to get fit where I'm at and this dude was given good reviews online. Lesson learned though. Happy he's giving me another hour and I'll be sure to be blunt next time around. 

[Pnwpingi210]

3 minutes ago, therb said:

Yeah, 25 shots later he finally put me in another head. This one was on me for not speaking up. I was put in a blender hitting ball after ball, not really having time to think, look into the data closely, and put too much trust in my fitter. I knew the horror stories of CC coming into it but there's not a lot of good options to get fit where I'm at and this dude was given good reviews online. Lesson learned though. Happy he's giving me another hour and I'll be sure to be blunt next time around. 

That’s a good idea.  Bring in some ideas of 2-3 heads you want to try.  Ask some question on why the fitter doesn’t like that head combo if they want to move on. 
 

id say based on the limited data the lst is spinning too high, which why the fitter moved.

[brian25]

I don't think there is anything wrong with hitting the gt2 for the first 25 swings to dial in shafts.  That's a good idea.  He probably should've listened to you more and pulled out the ping earlier.  I didn't look at your data but it doesn't seem like anything is wrong with the process just maybe his interpretation of the data

[bcjim]

"With the fitting cost, the quote ran me ~$1800 CAD (this was with a Velocore + shaft). "

 

$1800 (even CAD) for one club?

 

At most of the fittings I've been to, that were not brand specific, the first question was "are you brand loyal and if so, which brand?"

[therb]

48 minutes ago, brian25 said:

I don't think there is anything wrong with hitting the gt2 for the first 25 swings to dial in shafts.  That's a good idea.  He probably should've listened to you more and pulled out the ping earlier.  I didn't look at your data but it doesn't seem like anything is wrong with the process just maybe his interpretation of the data

 

I see now how it makes sense to build that baseline with one head. Looking at the specs, the GT2 is 196g & G400 Max is 206g. It's weird he wouldn't take this into account, it felt like I was swinging a feather and my delivery of the clubface was off. Wish he had started me off with the 440 Max in hindsight, I'll make sure I'm prepared next time around. 

[therb]

55 minutes ago, bcjim said:

"With the fitting cost, the quote ran me ~$1800 CAD (this was with a Velocore + shaft). "

 

$1800 (even CAD) for one club?

 

At most of the fittings I've been to, that were not brand specific, the first question was "are you brand loyal and if so, which brand?"

Everything is expensive here man. $900 for a new driver off the rack these days. And the $80 upcharge on buying an exotic shaft w/ pureing and their install doesn't help. $900 for driver head, $580 for shaft, $24 for grip, $180 for fitting + tax... 

 

Hah, funny enough, I told him I'm a Ping loyalist cause the G400 changed my driving game. Next time I'll insist I hit the 440s first and work my way backwards to see if anything can beat them.

[Pnwpingi210]

27 minutes ago, therb said:

Everything is expensive here man. $900 for a new driver off the rack these days. And the $80 upcharge on buying an exotic shaft w/ pureing and their install doesn't help. $900 for driver head, $580 for shaft, $24 for grip, $180 for fitting + tax... 

 

Hah, funny enough, I told him I'm a Ping loyalist cause the G400 changed my driving game. Next time I'll insist I hit the 440s first and work my way backwards to see if anything can beat them.

That’s a good idea.  I would ask him to add headlight to the lighter heads to bring them up to the ping weight if that’s the route you go.  You may like heavier heads and all oems can accommodate that now. 
 

Dispersion being equal your going to leave a lot of yards on the table if you can’t get spin done from 3k (ping heads in your data) to 2500 spin (gt2)

Edited March 21 by Pnwpingi210

[Punkekid]

As some have said, "Agnostic" fitters generally start with the shaft first.

 

I have been fit at CC twice, and both times they focused on shaft profile first. The head choice seemed almost secondary to the shaft. I was gaming a Taylormade and they fit me into a Taylormade. Neither time did I feel like the fitting yielded enough change to warrant a new driver. Also, I would never buy a club from CC. They charge premium prices for every individually component. Both times the quote for a new driver was well north of $1k USD.

[therb]

52 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

That’s a good idea.  I would ask him to add headlight to the lighter heads to bring them up to the ping weight if that’s the route you go.  You may like heavier heads and all oems can accommodate that now. 
 

Dispersion being equal your going to leave a lot of yards on the table if you can’t get spin done from 3k (ping heads in your data) to 2500 spin (gt2)

Thanks for the feedback. Would definitely be nice to add some girth to those sub 200g heads.

 

I'll also try the Ventus Black and compare spin numbers, heard that may just launch lower and not reduce spin though. I've also heard using a higher lofted driver can take spin down a bit - I was only testing 9* heads so maybe a 10.5* slight closed face could benefit me. And a lot of people coming from the Ping MAX loft up when going to LST. 

[Pnwpingi210]

10 minutes ago, therb said:

Thanks for the feedback. Would definitely be nice to add some girth to those sub 200g heads.

 

I'll also try the Ventus Black and compare spin numbers, heard that may just launch lower and not reduce spin though. I've also heard using a higher lofted driver can take spin down a bit - I was only testing 9* heads so maybe a 10.5* slight closed face could benefit me. And a lot of people coming from the Ping MAX loft up when going to LST. 

Lofting up might help, but most likely not.  It’s going to raise spin loft and add some spin. 
 

it’s good to go in with idea of a couple of heads and a couple shafts you want to try, but I recommend letting the fitter guide you the rest of the way.  At a certain point your paying a premium to get the expertise of the fitter to help get you in a setup that’s comfortable and optimized.

[Orreif]

2 hours ago, therb said:

 

I see now how it makes sense to build that baseline with one head. Looking at the specs, the GT2 is 196g & G400 Max is 206g. It's weird he wouldn't take this into account, it felt like I was swinging a feather and my delivery of the clubface was off. Wish he had started me off with the 440 Max in hindsight, I'll make sure I'm prepared next time around. 

Did he test swing weight with you? At my CC experience they did that at the end with lead tape, he recommended I play my driver at E0. I walked out and never went back after that. 

[AdExec]

I would go hit that GT2 VF 6X 9* again and make sure you can replicate those numbers, but honestly he is right….it doesn't get any better. Perfect launch. Nearly perfect spin. Straight but falling 8 yards right of center and 315 yards.  Great height. Great land angle.That’s looks DIALED IN. 

 

 

[therb]

1 hour ago, Orreif said:

Did he test swing weight with you? At my CC experience they did that at the end with lead tape, he recommended I play my driver at E0. I walked out and never went back after that. 

Nope, no mention of swingweight, but we ran out of time. I'm going back in a few times, sounds like that'll be telling haha

[therb]

1 hour ago, AdExec said:

I would go hit that GT2 VF 6X 9* again and make sure you can replicate those numbers, but honestly he is right….it doesn't get any better. Perfect launch. Nearly perfect spin. Straight but falling 8 yards right of center and 315 yards.  Great height. Great land angle.That’s looks DIALED IN. 

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion and taking a look at my numbers, that's something I'll be sure to do. The VF shaft felt great, stout but with feel and I could still launch it. Compared to the Blue + which tended to spin more and height was a bit high some shots. I'll see if the G440 LST with the VF can compete with those GT2 numbers cause I just feel more comfortable over the turbulators using them for the past 7 years so I'm hoping it can